The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Texas, adds a legal controversy to the political fight that has been brewing over President Obama’s immigration policies, which have steadily narrowed the range of immigrants the government is targeting for deportation.

The 10 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and deportation officers said Mr. Obama’s policies force them to choose between enforcing the law and being reprimanded by superiors, or listening to superiors and violating their own oaths of office and a 1996 law that requires them to put those who entered the country illegally into deportation proceedings.

The lead attorney is Kris Kobach, also an arms-length advisor to the Mitt Romney campaign and whose immigration planks were recently added to the GOP platform. He says:

"ICE is at a point now where agents are being told to break federal law, they’re pretty much told that any illegal alien under age of 31 is going to be let go. You can imagine, these law enforcement officers are being put in a horrible position."

While I wish the suit the best of luck, I highly recommend not counting on it succeeding or having much of an impact no matter what happens.

Illegal immigration is a hearts and minds issue. The reason 9-year-olds don't work in sheet metal factories nowadays isn't because business people and politicians have a moral opposition to such labor. It's because they know their careers would be over if, for instance, they pushed to allow (U.S.) 9-year-olds to work in sheet metal factories.

We need to move to that same position on illegal immigration: make it a toxic issue that no politicians - or at least those outside the fringe - are willing to support or enable. You don't do that with lawsuits, you do that with hearts and minds.